Vienna, Nov 25: Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel's Conservatives emerged as the strongest party in Austria's election but his coalition partner, Joerg Haider's Far-Right Freedom Party, suffered a humiliating setback. "The result was unexpected but thank god it's a clear result," people's party leader Schuessel said after results were announced yesterday.

Haider's anti-immigration, anti-Europe party scored a paltry 10.2 per cent of the vote, losing almost two-thirds of the nearly 27 per cent it won in the general election in 1999.

But with no single party gaining an absolute majority, Schuessel is to begin coalition talks today, with the choice of choosing a partner or trying to form a minority government. Ironically the controversial Freedom Party (FPOE), which sent shockwaves across Europe when it entered the government in 2000, could return to share power once again despite its free fall as Schuessel needs its votes for a parliamentary majority.

The People's Party (OEVP) scored 42.3 per cent, putting it well ahead of Austria's other main party, the Social Democratic Party (SPOE) of Alfred Gusenbauer which won close 36.9 per cent, the first time the socialists had failed to take the top spot since 1966.

Gusenbauer conceded defeat and prepared for opposition.

"The Oevp has clearly won. I congratulate them," Gusenbauer said on national television. Bureau Report